Immediate Family

About Louis Charles Hayward

Louis Charles Hayward (19 March 1909 – 21 February 1985) was a British actor born in South Africa.

Biography

Born in Johannesburg, Louis Hayward lived in South Africa and was educated in France and England, including Latymer Upper School in London. He spent some time managing a night club but wanted to act and bought into a stock company. He became a protege of Noël Coward and began appearing in London in plays such as Dracula and Another Language; he also started being cast in some British films of the early 1930s.

Hayward came to Broadway in 1935 with a production of Noël Coward's Point Valaine working with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. It only ran a short time, after which Hayward moved to Hollywood. He started getting work almost immediately, gaining great attention in the prologue of Anthony Adverse (1936). He was then cast as the first screen incantation of Simon Templar in Leslie Charteris' The Saint in New York.

In 1938 he starred in The Duke of West Point for producer Edward Small who signed him to make three films over the next five years, meaning he was unable to reprise his part as the Saint. However Small cast him in a dual role in The Man in the Iron Mask as well as The Son of Monte Cristo (1940). He had a small role in The Magnificent Ambersons (1941) which was cut out. He became an American citizen in December 1941.

War Service

During World War II, Hayward enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and commanded a photographic unit that filmed the Battle of Tarawa in a documentary titled With the Marines at Tarawa (winner of the 1944 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Hayward was awarded the Bronze Star Medal When off-duty in New Zealand he "went under the name of "Captain Richards" to avoid the rush of the ladies" as recalled by a waiter at a Wellington restaurant, the Green Parrot.

Return to Hollywood

Returning to Hollywood, he played the role of Philip Lombard in the 1945 version of And Then There Were None. He also continued to make swashbuckler films, including several for Edward Small.

In the 1950s Hayward made large numbers of television appearances. He starred in the 1954 syndicated television series The Lone Wolf and the 1961 British television series The Pursuers. Hayward's other television work includes a role as a judge in an episode, "Day of Reckoning" (original air date 22 November 1962), of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

Hayward's work in live theatre included Noël Coward's "Conversation Piece," and later, in the early 1960s, the national tour of Camelot, in which he appeared as King Arthur. His standby for the role was Byrne Piven, better known as the father of actor Jeremy Piven.

He retired from acting during the 1970s.

Personal life

Hayward married actress/director Ida Lupino November 17, 1938, in a quiet civil ceremony held in the Santa Barbara courthouse. After Louis returned from the war he was drastically different (he was suffering from depression most likely caused by post traumatic stress disorder) and this caused a strain in the marriage. They were divorced in 1945. He then met Peggy Morrow and after dating for a while they married on May 29, 1946. They divorced just 4 years later on March 13, 1950. Louis Hayward had one son, Dana (who died in 2007), with his third wife, June Hanson (who died in 1998). He was posthumously reported to have had a long-standing homosexual relationship with playwright/screenwriter Noël Coward in biographies of the latter.

Death[edit source]

Louis Hayward died in Palm Springs, California, from lung cancer, aged 75, blaming his illness on a five-decade habit of smoking three packs of cigarettes daily. At Hayward's request, he had no funeral or memorial service.